BJP-INLD combine sweeps Haryana

The Bharatiya Janata Party-Indian National Lok Dal alliance made a clean sweep in Haryana, bagging all the 10 parliamentary seats in the state and making even Congress stalwarts like Bhajan Lal and Bhupinder Singh Hooda lick the dust.

Former chief minister Bhajan Lal suffered the rudest shock of his life when he tasted defeat for the first time in more than 30 years in politics at the hands of former bureaucrat I D Swami. Bhajan Lal lost his traditional Karnal seat by more than 147,000 votes.

Hooda, who had won the Rohtak seat thrice in a row defeating former deputy prime minister Devi Lal, was trounced by more than 144,000 votes by debutant Captain Inder Singh.

INLD general secretary Ajay Chautala, son of Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala, wrested the Bhiwani seat defeating Dharamvir of the Congress by a whopping margin of more than 200,000 votes.

Kargil widow Sudha Yadav of the BJP wrested the Mahendragarh seat from former state minister Inderjit Singh by a huge margin of more than 138,000 votes.